Shocked that companies and mutual funds would invest OPM (Other People's Money) in high-risk investments, the Shocked Investor was originally on a mission to find out if our money ended up in these dubious instruments. This blog now also discusses other financial topics, such as straddles, options, gold, natural gas, agri/food stocks, and the collapse of the US Dollar.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010

After close to 90 years of independence, it is a sad day for the country that it has squandered its sovereignty through sheer economic mismanagement. What makes it even worse is that this has happened at a time when we are still, on paper at least, one of the wealthiest nations in the world.

The immediate trigger for the decision of our European Union partners to force Ireland into the EU/International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout is the state of our banks, but the impact on the country is likely to be felt across all aspects of Government policy and at every level of society. On one level, intervention by the EU and the IMF is no bad thing. It means that rational decisions on how we can live within our means will now be forced down the throats of the competing interests who have stymied any genuine national response to the crisis.

The real danger is that some other EU states will try to tamper with major national policy issues like the 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate, so the sooner we get through the pain of the four-year plan and out the other side, the better. On a party political level, the events of recent days are a disaster for Fianna Fáil. The party, which always thought of itself as being a national movement rather than a mere political party, has presided over the surrender of Irish sovereignty as a direct result of its own mismanagement.
In the longer run, that is likely to be devastating for the party that has never spent more than one term out of office. The voters who rewarded it for being so irresponsible in the good times are likely to be merciless now that everything has gone so badly wrong.

So I am wondering, what if the situation in Ireland unravels beyond the point of no return? Why would the population accept being tied to the Euro? Will the government survive?